Jenny sat at the kitchen table eating a salad with raspberry vinagrette. Her mother was washing dishes. Jenny hadn't touched any of her mom's macaroni and cheese. She was just visiting. Since moving to Los Angeles, she seemed very much her own person.
"Are you sure you're happy in LA?" asked her mother.
"It's where I want to be," said Jenny.
"But you didn't say you're happy," pressed her mom. "That animation studio doesn't pay you well at all. You're so talented, I don't know why you don't do something else!"
"Animation is what I do," said Jenny.
"What is that program you're drawing stills for? 'Kung Fu Kangaroo In Space?'"
"It's Saturday morning cartoons, Ma. It's what they pay for."
"Is it any good?"
"Honestly, no. It sucks beans. But it does pay."
"I made myself watch it once," said Ma. "I didn't like it. Too much pride and sarcasm."
"Yes you're right Ma!" said Jenny, surprised. "Well put. That was insightful."
"But you don't have to do that. You could do computers! There's this Internet thing the newspapers keep talking about. Java something. I'm sure you could do that," she said.
"I DO do that," said Jenny.
"But you don't get paid for it."
"No. But I do projects on the side with Lizzie. She works with me at the animation studio, you know."
"Lizzie," said her mom, knowingly. "Have you published any of these side projects?"
Jenny sighed. "No. You know we keep trying. The publishers keep saying strange vague things. Out of step with our age. What if you had the characters doing rap. You know how it is. I showed you our latest one, 'On Chandler Down', remember?"
"Yes," said her mother, "but I just don't get out of it what you do. People in the English countryside a hundred years ago talking to each other, mostly."
"I laid out the overall plot and illustrated the backgrounds. Lizzie concentrated on the actual conversation and facial expressions. The funnest part of the backgrounds was the shadows and secondhand lighting. Radiosity. They defined the atmosphere. It was a continuation of that previous project, 'Chandler Woods', remember? and Lizzie and I have several ideas of where to take it next."
"It was very pretty," ventured Ma. "I'm sure Lizzie could get a better paying job too."
"Hm," said Jenny, and concentrated on eating her salad.
Jenny knew it was true. Lizzie could easily do graphic design. She'd had offers from Chicago. Jenny had had offers from Silicon Valley. The underlying constant was, you have to get with the times. You have to move away. You have to stop working on what you love. You have to stop talking to one another.
Because, really, that's what it was all about. Jenny and Lizzie talked to each other, all the time, about exactly what they were building and why. They talked about scene transitions and period wardrobe and hidden character goals in language they both understood. Jenny could run a consistent world with dozens of complex characters in her head. Lizzie could take scenes and actions and vibrantly paint them in words and pictures. Jenny and Lizzie saw what each was doing, and they could describe what each was doing, and they regularly did so in detail and suggested how to improve it.
Nobody else appreciated their work, at all, but they did. Nobody else came close to appreciating ANYTHING Jenny did the way that Lizzie did. Lizzie had a boyfriend. Maybe they would get engaged and married and have children. But the projects Lizzie spent most of the hours of her life on, to her boyfriend, were just Lizzie's thing. Just as it was Jenny's thing to Jenny's mother. To Jenny, their collaboration was more valuable than anything else in their lives. As far as Jenny could tell, most people didn't have anything that valuable in their lives at all.
Jenny's mom continued washing the dishes. "I just want what is best for you, is all," she said.
Perhaps, someday, one of these projects would gain outside recognition. Maybe even allow them to get paid for what they did. But until then, Jenny and Lizzie were continuing to work together the only way they'd found where they'd be allowed to continue doing it. By animating 'Kung Fu Kangaroo In Space' in LA.
If that's what it took, then so be it.
This was in response to a prompt on rWritingPrompts, "you are absolute perfection and more at writing, world building, animation and drawing in any style, you can do all of this with a tenth of your effort in the span of a month, but the only person who all of this is your best friend, and your extremely underpaid."